


ripe; unplucked

by chartreuser



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety, Character Study, M/M, limbo fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-02 22:22:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6584950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chartreuser/pseuds/chartreuser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack thinks: <i>up north.</i> Even in his dreams he should be feeling the cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ripe; unplucked

**Author's Note:**

> major thanks to my Holster (Scruffy) and Anna (bananasplat) and Nathan (bittlebunny) for cheering me on!
> 
> this fic uses some elements from the movie Inception, but you don't really have to know anything about it to read this, really, just a head's up + there are some nuances to suicide implied in this story, so if that disturbs you then please take note!

 

> ...dreaming of a marble sun   
>  and its strictness. This  
>  is to tell you I am not coming back.
> 
> ― Jack Gilbert, A Description of Happiness in Kobenhavn.

 

 

Jack is trying to pick himself off the bathroom floor when the world goes dim.

 

 

He blinks himself awake, doesn’t know where he is. The waves lap hungrily against the shore and Jack touches a hand to his stomach. The nausea is gone. He picks himself up and curls his toes into the sand. It’s warm, soft against his skin, feels nothing like the ice.

There’s nothing in the pockets of his shorts. Jack turns away from the sea ( _ocean?_ ) and continues walking. He feels the heat on his back. The summer glares onto his face as if it knows. His feet sink into the sand when he stares for too long, so Jack starts walking again.

As far as he can see—there isn’t anybody else around. That’s fine with him. Jack lets the frustration fall from his eyes. As easy as gravity. He thinks about the harsh slam of bodies, an even quicker blur on the ice; it’s funny how everything plays out awful in your head until you can’t remember the colour of someone’s eyes, their sharp angles, neat teeth. Jack is too familiar with the mechanics of his own memories to trust them.

 

 

Jack’s been walking east for a good while when the sun begins to set. The wind ruffles his hair. It reminds him of who he was all those years ago. He doesn’t move. Jack thinks he’s not going to sink. Maybe the ground is opening up too slowly for him to notice.

 

 

The sky’s dark when he gives up. Jack’s just starting to go up north when he sees the roads. An arrow painted Samwell red. He follows the path. Traffic lights come into sight right where one would need them, but there aren’t any cars as far as Jack can see. It’s a quiet, empty town. He still hears the ocean.

 

 

All the stores are closed when Jack tries them. His attempts prove to be completely futile after a while, and Jack figures, _fuck it, why not_. He lies down on the ground and closes his eyes. Waits for sleep.

 

 

He wakes up the next day. It’s just as hot, so Jack shrugs off his shirt and keeps on walking. It’s like a vacation that he hadn’t prepared for. He wonders if he’ll find any shoes eventually, so he could do some jogging. Perhaps they’ll be abandoned by the road somewhere, just the way he was.

That’s an unlikely prospect, though, if Jack’s the only one in this world. He probably wouldn’t mind so much; Jack’s been rotting inside his own head for a long, long time. If there’s no one to know who you are—there’ll be nothing to hide. Just as well.

“Other arms reach out to me,” Jack whispers softly, looking back to where he’d thrown his shirt. The fabric’s disappeared now. “Other eyes smile tenderly.”

 

 

He runs into a bed. The sheets are white, clinical. Jack’s spent long enough on one of those to realise that it belongs to the hospital. What it’s doing here in his no-man’s land—he doesn’t know. It sits in the middle of the road, almost conspicuous but not quite. Just as well, Jack supposes. Things couldn’t really get any stranger. He has a problem with accepting things but he always has. Had to learn how to grow into it. He slips underneath the covers, and pulls them over his head. He’ll deal with the headaches as he wakes.

 

 

When he does—the shops are gone. All replaced by a blue blankness looming over him in its entirety, warming him up even further. He squints at the two suns and thinks of someone he might’ve known once, someone sprawling. It’s always a question that lingers in the past for him: you did this when you were twelve. Sixteen years old and you sprained your ankle, shaking so badly your teeth rattled. ~~At nineteen, you.~~

 

 

Jack tumbles out of bed. He falls into the sand and watches the camels step slowly on the dunes, a few miles away. Jack buries his feet the way that other people would build a sandcastle. That was before.

 

 

He only moves when the suns start to get more relentless. Dusts away everything that clings to his skin, hands smoothing over his body. Jack’s lost all of his scars, as far as he can see. It feels like a younger body he’s inhabiting when the fact registers, one decade of his life gone. Jack prefers his body tarnished, little reminders that he’s still making it through; it’s almost romantic but. Whatever helps him cope.

In all honesty—he could go back to sleep. Shut his eyes and let the desert lull him to a lack of a conscience. But the warmth is overbearing. He wants the stark sunlight to be gentle; he remembers the way it would diffuse through kitchen curtains, a softer kiss against his skin. There’s nothing sweet about this harshness. It beats into him like a bruise.

Jack gets up. He moves forward. North, he thinks. North is good. The cold is up north. Quieter there. He grew up with snowflakes falling into his eyes; it’s a comfort more than a hindrance. He wonders if there are mountains here. He wants to feel the snow against his bare back the way the sand embraces his skin.

A snapback sits in front of Jack’s feet, suddenly. He almost trips over it. Jack bends down low to pick it up. The pattern’s gone, eradicated. If he peers hard enough it is almost familiar, but the heat is fucking up his vision, and Jack doesn’t bother. He tells himself that he’s wearing it for the shade.

“You always handled the heat better than I did,” Jack says.

 

 

He walks up north as if it will bring him back to Providence.

It feels like a mistake, but his father loves to remind him that it’s common. Make one and you’re human. Make several more and you still are. Nothing wrong about that. Nothing wrong about holding your head in your hands waiting for the day your brains come spilling out.

 

 

He walks until the sun sets. He walks even when the sun rises. Jack doesn’t tire in this land, wherever he is. The suns are unbearable but they don’t slow him down. A little heat is nothing compared to the way he’s played with broken legs, broken fingers.

His snapback sits heavy on his head the way he’d expect it to. He treasures it like a relic. In some ways it is.

 

 

The desert melts away, eventually. It feels like he’s been walking for hours. For days. Maybe time doesn’t work as well as it usually does here; in this land where he’s the only one left. He shrugs the sand away from his feet and hauls himself onto stone, onto pavement. It scorches his soles but it doesn’t affect him.

He moves forward and there’s a junction. Jack stills. There are too many options to choose from. He feels his heart beat faster. “It’s okay,” he says aloud. “Don’t panic. Breathe.” He threads his fingers through his hair. The way his maman used to do before he was too old. Sad how people grow up to live lonelier.

The tears drip onto his hands. He wipes them away on the material of his shorts. There’s an image of red fruit glaring in his mind. Jack smiles. Hums, “still in peaceful dreams I see—the road leads back to you.”

Eighteen small roads. Jack doesn’t even know where to start, but he supposes that turning ‘round is always a thing. He did it at twenty. Sometimes losing doesn’t turn out too bad, sometimes, so Jack closes his eyes, daring himself to walk forward. Something sweet spreads over his tongue, and there’s a force pulling him forward, enveloping his hand, and Jack goes.

 

 

He goes forward with his eyes closed for however long. Jack doesn’t trip over everything, doesn’t even stumble. The roads are hot and heavy under his feet but he continues on, one in front of the other. He keeps his eyes shut until he can’t take it anymore.

 

 

Jack opens his eyes and says, “looks like Providence.” His mystery friend loosens their grip on him. The roads are almost a carbon copy. He breathes in deep. Exhales. Asks the tension to leave his body. He’ll be fine. He’ll just have to make his way back to his apartment, hope it’s unlocked, get whatever he needs and continue walking. Up north, even if he doesn’t know where that leads.

Being back in Providence, as empty as it is—it’s strangely upsetting. Jack feels the unease grow in his lungs until he represses it. He almost wants to throw up. He looks up to the sky. There’s only one sun left. He thinks he prefers his reality a bit more abstract. Jack thinks he prefers reality to be a bit stranger; it’s easier to distance yourself when you can’t understand.

“I said Georgia, oh Georgia,” Jack sings, pressing the button to his floor in the lift. Moves slowly towards his apartment as if he’s waiting for an earthquake to happen underneath him. It doesn’t feel that bizarre, in comparison to everything else he’s experiencing.

The door’s locked. Jack should’ve known better. Maybe he could climb in a window somewhere to find himself curled up on the bathroom floor, but what then? In here there’s no one to save him. In here he has only himself. He can deal with that.

His camera is inexplicably on the front rug, but Jack’s not one to reject small mercies. He picks it up and walks back out. Back onto the streets. Now that he’s trapped—Jack realises that he actually doesn’t know Providence that much. Has only spent time searching out the places that he needed to go, the stores he needed essentials from. He’s got a route for jogging but it wraps around his apartment block. He really doesn’t know anything about the city.

 

 

Jack has just passed an empty street sign when he remembers the camera he’s slung over his shoulder. It’s soft yellow, and Jack holds it up to his face, peers into the viewfinder. Toggles the white balance until it’s the exact shade of— _pie crust?_

He blinks, shaking his head to get the image out of his head. Zooms into another location instead. There’s a pair of geese walking down the road, disobeying the traffic lights. Jack smiles. He readies the aperture, but—

 “Jack. Hi.”

Jack drops his DSLR.

Kent Parson’s standing behind him, almost shy—which is a strange look on him, although Jack’s seen it before. He drops the smile, turning around to retrieve his camera, but it’s gone.

Jack looks back into his direction. Kent’s managed to lift Jack’s snapback without Jack noticing, strutting away as he adjusts the hat.

Jack sighs. Looks into the sun, the clouds. One of them look like a pair of eyes, grinning back at him. There’s another one shaped like a rolling pin.

“Shame,” he says, but he doesn’t know who it’s directed to. “We had good lighting today.”

 

 

The weather is still sweltering, close to unbearable. Jack bears the brunt of it without his snapback. He ducks into the shade sometimes, but knows that he has to keep on moving. It’s never good to stay stagnant.

 

 

There’s a bridge. It’s building itself up, a self-assembly, but it disintegrates the very next second. Jack’s seen this place before, in his memories. It doesn’t live in Providence; Jack would have noticed. Something about its structure seems fragile, unsteady. Jack feels like he could crush it in just one thought. He doesn’t bother to try, and turns in the other direction. North-east.

 

 

(Jack thinks he saw somebody, on the other side of the river. Someone blond. Too small to be Kent Parson. He looks like he’s waiting for Jack, but the bridge was so frail. Maybe his mystery visitor would have been able to cross it; he looked light enough.)

 

 

“Sorry,” Jack says, even though he doesn’t really know why. Anxiety crawls back into his head as if he’s done anything to incite it again. It’s confusing. He wants to say the words: “it’s just one person,” but they don’t manage to make their way out of his mouth. They’re solid, with the weight of a lie.

He starts to reach into the pocket of his shorts. “Don’t,” Jack snaps, before he feels a little silly. He’s fortunate enough that there’s no one around to witness him going out of his mind. _You’ve had enough_ , he thinks, before he remembers that they’re empty. Jack sighs. Sits down on the pavement with his head in his hands. He feels his heart pound under his skin, but Jack decides not to rush himself. He’s going to calm down first.

 

 

He’s been walking for about an hour when he reaches another bridge. It looks exactly like the previous one, but Jack reckons that he’ll be needing to cross these things anyway. He knows how to swim; it doesn’t matter if he falls. He just has to push past the current, or maybe he’ll go along with it.

Jack closes his eyes. Why not? It’s helped him before.

He steps forward. Jack’s trembling but it’s a familiar sensation, he knows how to play even when his grip on the hockey stick’s tight. He’s had panic attacks in games the Falconers won. It’s not a dirty secret. He has nothing to be ashamed of.

But there’s his phantom friend again, pulling his hand forward. It doesn’t yank. Doesn’t urge. Gently tugs on his hand so he knows where to go. His ghost is giggling. “Got your back,” they say.

 

 

No one’s there when he opens his eyes.

“The road leads back to you,” Jack whispers under his breath. Seems to prove true.

 

 

Jack thinks: north, north, north, north, north, north, north, north, north, north, north, north, north.

 

 

There’s a gate that Jack has to push past. He moves to press his hand against the rusting iron before someone blocks his path, it’s Kent.

“Kenny,” Jack says. He doesn’t know if he should be happy or upset to see him. Jack swallows. “How are you?”

Kent seems to ignore him. “This is it,” he says, looking fresh. Bright-eyed. He’s overflowing with confidence now, but that’s what drew Jack to him in the first place. He’s always liked that about him, the unapologetic attitude, the self-assurance. Someone’s gotta faith in you when you can’t even trust yourself to hold any balance on the ice.

Jack clears his throat, rubbing a hand over his jaw. He hasn’t grown any stubble. Kent doesn’t look any older than when he’d picked Jack off the floor, hyperventilating as he pressed out the number for the ambulance with shaking fingers. He blinks hard.

Jack says, “I haven’t seen this place before.”

Kent looks at him, a little suspicious. Jack thinks he’s seeing concern. “Of course you haven’t. You’re not real.”

 

 

Kent vanishes, and Jack steps beyond the gate into the forest. It’s livelier, though Jack still doesn’t see much other than plants, the trees. They grow greener by the second. It smells lush, tropical. He’s still sweating from the heat, but the shade is pretty much nearly constant now. He’s cool with it.

 

 

Jack thinks: _north. Further north. Push yourself harder. Walk more. You’ll get there someday_ , but what he doesn’t think is: _to where?_

 

He almost walks into a tree. There’s two red-capped manakins above him bouncing from plant to plant—and Jack’s taken aback. They’re fast. He doesn’t expect them to move this gracefully in a forest full of dirt and mud, but things happen in places where you wouldn’t think to find hope. Jack would know.

But they stop moving. Two of them stop to stare at him, and Jack freezes. He didn’t mean to stop, but his legs won’t move. They seem to be telling him something.

“I don’t know,” Jack says, feeling the weight of their gaze. “I was supposed to be going up north. You two were just—in the way.”

One of them flies off.

Jack looks at the other one. Stares into his brown eyes and lets out a sigh as it jumps onto his shoulder. “Sometimes it just springs out at you, you know? The realization that you’ve always been too late. One beat out of time.”

 

 

It starts pouring. Jack perspires even stronger with the water flushing the sweat away from his body. The humidity irritates Jack even more when the rain falls hot, though it’s nowhere near as scalding as the showers after a lost game.

 

 

For the first time—Jack loses his balance and trips. The ground is softer, more welcoming than he expects it to be. Perhaps he’s just used to hard ice, to being slammed against the boards. He’s fallen into a pile of leaves, the kind you’d expect in deep autumn. It’s so out of place that it startles a laugh out of Jack. He plucks a maple leaf off of his forehead and grins.

 

 

A river stretches horizontally in front of him, the stream rushing along. It’s by no means calm—but it’s not so strong that Jack doesn’t dare to swim in it, either. He takes a deep breath and dives down deep.

It’s shallower than he expected. Jack supposes that there are some things you will never know until you try. It’s a scary philosophy to believe in.

 

 

When Jack pulls himself up on the bank, dripping wet, it’s no longer a forest. Looks more like an orchard instead, thousands of apple trees crowding in his vision. Jack shakes his hair out, looks to the sun. It’s still up, but Jack’s feeling like he’s been waiting for days.

There’s a tree in the middle of it all, thick with its leaves sprawling for miles. Jack sees one of the red-capped manakins and walks towards it. He hears the bird even this far away. Maybe it’s the quiet. Even the leaves don’t crunch as loud underneath his bare feet.

It stills when he comes close. Perches on the branch and looks at him with wide eyes, and Jack knows. He’s seen those eyes before.

Jack says, “Kenny—I’m sorry. Wish we could go back.”

He extends his hand. It’s supposed to be a truce, but it’s a bit silly to try and shake hands with a bird. An apple falls onto his open palm instead, and Jack bites into it. It’s sweet. The juice runs down his fingers and down his jaw. Calms the heat stroke that’s beginning to culminate in him.

“I don’t think you do, Jack,” Kent says, and Jack turns around. He’s older, now, the bags underneath his eyes heavy. People don’t notice them as quickly as Jack does. Sometimes they don’t notice at all—but Jack’s been his friend for a long while. He doesn’t know if that still stands, but. They were together once, high off the feeling of watching the rest of the world pass by. It was always a game of tag they were trying to play with themselves back then. Jack doesn’t know if it’s still that way now. Too much time has passed. Too much time has crawled up into the spaces between them and now they’re only growing distant. But Jack still loves him. He thinks he’ll never stop.

He finds his voice. “Kenny—”

Kent raises a hand. Jack falls silent. “Listen,” he says. “Do you remember when we used to climb out to the fire escape?”

Jack frowns at him. “Yeah.”

“Do you.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Jack almost snarls. “We were sixteen, of _course_ I do—”

“And now?” Kent comes closer. His breath is warm against Jack’s skin.

Jack exhales deeply. “Fourth of July was just over. You’re 26 now, Parson—”

“A decade, Zimms,” Kent sighs. “You really wanna go back?”

 

 

They’re sitting under the shade when Kent vanishes. It’s so sudden that it shocks Jack, a little, who’s been leaning against his shoulder. The way they did when they were teenagers—but Kent’s right. It’s been a decade. Some things you just have to let go of.

But there are still things Jack doesn’t have the courage to say. A decade later and you’d still be fumbling for words like you’re sixteen again. He wants to say: I love someone else now. He wants to say: I’ll always love you too. He wants to say: I’m sorry I fucked it all up. We’re strangers now but you’re still in my head. We don’t really speak anymore. But we know each other. We still do.

 

 

It’s not until Jack gathers the courage to say that aloud that Kent materializes in front of him, ghostly. Jack grits his teeth. Closes his eyes.

“Am I dead?”

“Don’t know,” Kent says, voice growing softer. “Do you want to be?”

 

 

Jack exhales. Counts to twenty before he opens his eyes. The trick is in regulating your heartbeat, or something. Jack never really listens, though he knows that he ought to. He’s always managed to play through the pain. He doesn’t see why this should be any different.

But Bitty’s standing in front of him, framed by the sunlight. Maybe Jack should’ve opened his eyes sooner. But sometimes you just aren’t ready. Sometimes you just have to wait. For the right moment. For that shift in the sunlight before you press the shutter.

 

 

“Jack,” Bitty says, and Jack pulls himself forward. Holds Eric tighter in his arms, and closes his eyes. Maybe he’ll vanish. Jack doesn’t really want to lose more people than he already has. He doesn’t want to make this alone. He might be lost in his own head but he doesn’t actually want it to happen.

He hasn’t reached a conclusion. Jack thinks that he’s just afraid of the answers. But he has to try and gather the courage anyway. Bite through the anxiety. Your hands might be shaking but that doesn’t mean you can’t score a goal.

 

 

Bitty doesn’t disappear.

 

 

When Jack’s able to breathe again, he says, “it’s really fucking hot. I miss the ice.”

Bitty’s palm is pressing against Jack’s face. It feels like a balm in the heat. Almost cold. Jack feels like he’s been boiling for centuries.

“I know it is, Jack,” Bitty says, wiping away the tears from the corners of his eyes. “I’m so, so sorry.”

 

 

He learns to let go after—Jack doesn’t know. Hours, maybe. Days. Months.

Bitty’s picking his apples, gathering them expertly in his arms the way that Jack would never be able to balance. He seems seasoned at this, the way that he commands attention at the centre of the kitchen. Jack could watch him forever, turning the fruit over in his hands, thinking. He comes back to Jack every once in a while. He thinks, _if only this was real._

When Bitty makes his way back to their tree—Jack tackles him over, memorizing the way his face flushes when he’s out of breath after roughhousing Jack for so long. Half of the buttons of his shirt is undone, and Jack drags his gaze back to Bitty’s face. It’s startling to look at him so closely; Jack’s used to observing him from a distance, thinking about the softness of his hands, his lips, but it’s been a while, and—

“Bitty,” Jack says, almost choking on the words. “How old are you?”

“Twenty,” Bitty replies, calm.

“But—”

Bitty sighs, touching his fingers to the curve of Jack’s lips, and says, “Jack. We haven’t seen each other in years.”

 

 

Jack turns this information over in his mind. He doesn’t really know what to do with it.

 

 

Jack says, “I feel like you’re always there, in my mind. Just around the edges. Sometimes I wish I did something. But I missed the chance.”

Bitty says, “Jack. There’s no such thing as ‘too late’. You just have to give yourself the opportunity.”

 

 

Jack wants a camera. He wishes that his previous one didn’t disappear. He feels like all of this isn’t enough for his mind. That he’d go up north and still be wanting more. His head’s in Bitty’s lap and he’s allowed to have as many apples as he want, the red skin of it tasting cool on his tongue. He wants to kiss Bitty but he won’t. He wants to see if Bitty tastes the same way as this orchard, warm and cloying but never enough.

“What are you doing?” Bitty asks, looking down at Jack.

“Counting your freckles,” Jack says. It’s the truth.

“Oh, Jack—”

“—I don’t like this place,” Jack interrupts. The words come out clumsy but he doesn’t know how much longer he can keep it in. It feels like he’s walked for miles but it still isn’t enough. He’s been waiting for snow, aching for the cold. This isn’t—this isn’t where he’s supposed to be.

Bitty blinks at him, once, but a soft smile spreads across his face. Jack wants to tell him that he’s too kind. He wants to tell Bitty that the real him would be angrier. But he still hasn’t gotten the courage. It’s been too long. “Then get outta here,” Bitty tells him.

Jack falls silent. He thinks about it, staying here forever. Watching the sun spin gold into Bitty’s hair, his freckles dancing on his cheeks, across his nose. Lying in a sunlit orchard knowing all he’d have to do is love.

 _But it isn’t real_.

Jack says, “won’t you come with me?”

Bitty’s features sharpen, all of a sudden, coming into focus. It’s a harsher view, but Jack knows that he has to come back sometime. “Jack,” Bitty says, patient, “Honey. I can only go so far.”

 

 

They set out when the sun’s high above them, but Jack learns how to forget about the heat. They’re walking north, like Jack’s always planned, Bitty one step behind him, and he’s afraid that he’ll disappear once he looks back, but. Bitty’s there each time he turns around, his smile indulgent.

 

 

“Just an old sweet song,” Jack sings. “Keeps Georgia on my mind.”

 

 

They reach winter faster than Jack’s expected. The mountains loom over them in their entirety, but Jack doesn’t feel his anxiety rising in his chest the way it usually does. It throws him off so much that he thinks about slipping on the trails, the rocks going out from underneath them. The earthquake that Jack’s always been expecting. But it doesn’t come. The panic lies low in his chest.

 _Muscle and bone,_ Jack thinks. _Fragile_ , but there are other things that break easily, too. The skin of an apple. The ice melting between Jack’s fingers. His anxiety, nestled deep in his body. Things can be overcome. You fall and get back up again. Take a hit and throw a punch back.

 

 

Jack climbs the mountain. It doesn’t feel cold. Bitty holds his hand the entire way.

“You know,” Jack says, halfway to the peak, “you’re really warm.”

Bitty looks at him. Jack knows he’s studying his expression, the way that Bitty always does when he’s trying to say something delicate. But no words come out; Bitty’s smiling instead, like he’s safeguarding a secret that Jack doesn’t know.

 

 

When they reach the top, Jack says, “Bitty—do you think you could give me a chance?”

Bitty says, “I don’t know, Jack. You gotta ask.”

 

 

He kisses him. Bitty’s eyes are wild, slightly glazed over, and it’s frightening, because Jack knows this is it. This could be the only kiss he has and it’s not enough. He’d stay to kiss Bitty some more but there are people to go back to. Second chances to ask for. Jack cradles Bitty’s face in his hands and counts his freckles again. It’s colder now, at the top. It’s what Jack is used to. He sears the number into the back of his mind.

Jack takes a breath.

“You don’t—you don’t feel real.”

Bitty shrugs. “You’re right, Jack. I’m not.”

He looks over the edge. He’s slightly afraid of heights but his heartbeat is refusing to speed up. His hands don’t shake even when Bitty lets go of them, rubbing his thumbs across his bleeding knuckles.

“Long way down,” Jack says. He smiles, and it feels genuine.

Bitty presses another kiss to his lips. It’s quick. Barely there, almost-forgettable, but Jack is already carrying it in his heart.

“Jack,” Bitty whispers, right into his ear, “the first step forwards is always the scariest.” He reaches back out and squeezes Jack’s hands again, for the last time.

“I still love you,” Jack admits.

Bitty grins at him. He says, “I’ll see you on the other side, sweetheart.”

 

 

Jack closes his eyes, stepping forwards—and his entire world lights up.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it, maybe consider [reblogging the edit](http://holsterr.tumblr.com/post/143296337685/ripe-unplucked-5k-by-chartreuser-jack-thinks) I made for this? / I have an omgcp [tumblr](http://holsterr.tumblr.com), so please feel free to talk to me there!
> 
> \+ did you know i wrote+plotted everything in a day? in 568 minutes, to be exact. think i'm going crazy now


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